Man, I'd love to get both bro..Any idea how?
I think Shawne's waiting on us right now which tells me 1 of 2 things: (1) he may not really have the offers out there that he and his agent want us to believe he has (I've heard there's interest---Chicago from a few weeks ago, Indiana possibly, now the Warriors all of a sudden---but haven't heard of any concrete offers made which is kind of telling -- you usually hear specific numbers being talking about) and (2), I think he may be waiting to see if Crawford takes our 'room' offer or not. If Craw rejects it, the Knicks may have promised it to him. If Craw does take that offer however, would Shawne take the vet min for a year? Maybe. Maybe that's why he's still hanging around NYC, working out on his own -- hopeful of a $2-yr/$5M deal but willing to accept less on a brief 1-yr deal if the Knicks land Crawford. Hard situation to read right now with Shawne..
If he does indeed have offers from other teams, I wouldn't want to piss him off by offering the room exception to a guy like Reggie Williams after Crawford turns us down...He may take that as an insult and bolt. He might understand where the Knicks are going with Crawford but may take the same contract offer to a less-established player like Reggie Williams over him as an insult (in actuality though, is Shawne really all that more established than Reggie anyway? Not really when you think about it..You get the feeling that the Knicks are finally an attractive team for players -- playing for the Knicks sells itself now). That's if we wanted BOTH -- if push came to shove and I was forced to zero in on one guy only, like I've been saying, it'd be Reggie. To me, Reggie Williams covers just about everything we could be looking for right now in ONE package: affordability (unlike other players he should be satisfied with a 'room exception' offer which is a fairly substantial raise for him over last year---Shawne's probably ready to jump on that and he made more than Reggie last yr); 40% 3-pt shooter with a track record going back to the DL before Golden State (has Craw ever come close to shooting 40% from deep? I could be wrong but I don't think so---Craw's always been a volume shooter; this guy's more of a marksman); adept scorer/additional firepower off the bench or to start if MDA so inclines (why couldn't this guy ever win a 6th MOY award playing here? I think he could -- coming off the bench playing for Mike D'Antoni? Absolutely he could); enough size at 6'6" to play the 2 AND 3 (legit backup for Melo that we currently lack); has shown that he's capable of handling a much heavier scoring workload if he had to (God forbid Melo went down for a stretch -- who has a better chance of picking up his scoring, Shawne or Reggie? Easy answer.)... Also, I understand that unlike Shawne, he wouldn't be able to slide down and guard the post but I think we've beefed up the frontline significantly to the point where we wouldn't really require Shawne to do that anymore..The fact that he can do it is still a plus but it no longer feels like a necessity.
Now if I were the Knicks and I truly wanted Reggie AND Shawne, I might aggressively offer Reggie the room exception (plus a rotation spot on a much improved/possible championship caliber team playing for Mike D'Antoni--an offensive player's dream) and then turn to Shawne and say, look, take the vet min for 1 more yr (only 66 gms plus the playoffs -- so it's already a reduced schedule anyway -- if there's a yr for a guy to take less on a 1-yr deal, this is it) and we promise to give you the bulk of (if not the entire) MLE next yr. That actually may placate him. Something like that maybe.
Or, if there's any truth to the new CBA rumor that current players on NBA rosters can re-structure their deals to give management more cap leeway to offer another player, I say let Amar'e and Melo re-work their contracts just enough to allow Knicks brass to up their offer to Shawne to keep him in Orange and Blue. Could we do that possibly?? We're not talking a lot of money for STAT or Melo to divert here (I think STAT and Shawne became pretty tight btw -- weren't they working out together in FLA during the lockout? I could see Amar'e being open to the idea and convincing Melo. Plus, it'd be great for team chemistry for them to do something that for Shawne) -- only a negligible amount ($500-750k from both guys?) which could allow us to make more of a fair offer to Shawne and keep him happy, esp. if we wanna offer the room exception to someone else. Just a thought..
I think Shawne's waiting on us right now which tells me 1 of 2 things: (1) he may not really have the offers out there that he and his agent want us to believe he has (I've heard there's interest---Chicago from a few weeks ago, Indiana possibly, now the Warriors all of a sudden---but haven't heard of any concrete offers made which is kind of telling -- you usually hear specific numbers being talking about) and (2), I think he may be waiting to see if Crawford takes our 'room' offer or not. If Craw rejects it, the Knicks may have promised it to him. If Craw does take that offer however, would Shawne take the vet min for a year? Maybe. Maybe that's why he's still hanging around NYC, working out on his own -- hopeful of a $2-yr/$5M deal but willing to accept less on a brief 1-yr deal if the Knicks land Crawford. Hard situation to read right now with Shawne..
If he does indeed have offers from other teams, I wouldn't want to piss him off by offering the room exception to a guy like Reggie Williams after Crawford turns us down...He may take that as an insult and bolt. He might understand where the Knicks are going with Crawford but may take the same contract offer to a less-established player like Reggie Williams over him as an insult (in actuality though, is Shawne really all that more established than Reggie anyway? Not really when you think about it..You get the feeling that the Knicks are finally an attractive team for players -- playing for the Knicks sells itself now). That's if we wanted BOTH -- if push came to shove and I was forced to zero in on one guy only, like I've been saying, it'd be Reggie. To me, Reggie Williams covers just about everything we could be looking for right now in ONE package: affordability (unlike other players he should be satisfied with a 'room exception' offer which is a fairly substantial raise for him over last year---Shawne's probably ready to jump on that and he made more than Reggie last yr); 40% 3-pt shooter with a track record going back to the DL before Golden State (has Craw ever come close to shooting 40% from deep? I could be wrong but I don't think so---Craw's always been a volume shooter; this guy's more of a marksman); adept scorer/additional firepower off the bench or to start if MDA so inclines (why couldn't this guy ever win a 6th MOY award playing here? I think he could -- coming off the bench playing for Mike D'Antoni? Absolutely he could); enough size at 6'6" to play the 2 AND 3 (legit backup for Melo that we currently lack); has shown that he's capable of handling a much heavier scoring workload if he had to (God forbid Melo went down for a stretch -- who has a better chance of picking up his scoring, Shawne or Reggie? Easy answer.)... Also, I understand that unlike Shawne, he wouldn't be able to slide down and guard the post but I think we've beefed up the frontline significantly to the point where we wouldn't really require Shawne to do that anymore..The fact that he can do it is still a plus but it no longer feels like a necessity.
Now if I were the Knicks and I truly wanted Reggie AND Shawne, I might aggressively offer Reggie the room exception (plus a rotation spot on a much improved/possible championship caliber team playing for Mike D'Antoni--an offensive player's dream) and then turn to Shawne and say, look, take the vet min for 1 more yr (only 66 gms plus the playoffs -- so it's already a reduced schedule anyway -- if there's a yr for a guy to take less on a 1-yr deal, this is it) and we promise to give you the bulk of (if not the entire) MLE next yr. That actually may placate him. Something like that maybe.
Or, if there's any truth to the new CBA rumor that current players on NBA rosters can re-structure their deals to give management more cap leeway to offer another player, I say let Amar'e and Melo re-work their contracts just enough to allow Knicks brass to up their offer to Shawne to keep him in Orange and Blue. Could we do that possibly?? We're not talking a lot of money for STAT or Melo to divert here (I think STAT and Shawne became pretty tight btw -- weren't they working out together in FLA during the lockout? I could see Amar'e being open to the idea and convincing Melo. Plus, it'd be great for team chemistry for them to do something that for Shawne) -- only a negligible amount ($500-750k from both guys?) which could allow us to make more of a fair offer to Shawne and keep him happy, esp. if we wanna offer the room exception to someone else. Just a thought..
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